Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron

Minimum Wage Magic (DFZ, #1)

by Rachel Aaron

Making a living is hard. In a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move around on their own, it can feel downright impossible.

Good thing freelance mage Opal Yong-ae has never let little things like impossibility stop her. She's found a way to put her overpriced magical art history degree to use as a Cleaner: a contract municipal employee who empties out abandoned apartments and resells the unusual treasures she finds inside for a profit. It's not a pretty job, or a safe one--there's a reason she wears bite-proof gloves--but when you're neck-deep in debt to a very magical, very nasty individual, you can't be picky about where the money comes from.

But even Opal's low standards are put to the test when the only thing of value in her latest apartment is the body of the previous tenant. Dealing with the dead isn't technically part of her job, but this mage died hiding a secret that could be worth a lot of money, and Opal's the only one who knows. With debts she can't pay due at the end of the week, this could be the big break she's been waiting for, but in a city of runaway magic where getting in over your head generally means losing it, the cost of chasing this opportunity might be more than Opal can survive.

Reviewed by Melanie on

4 of 5 stars

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My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

This book is the first in a series that is a spin off from Rachel Aaron’s Heartstriker series. It is set in the Detroit area known as the DFZ or The Detroit Free Zone. Magic exists. Dragons exists. There are even spirits. The spirits that we see in this book are the spirit of the DFZ, which rules in the DFZ and changes things as she sees fit, including moving buildings and roads on a daily basis. There is also The Empty Wind, which is the spirit of The Forgotten Dead. Anyone who dies without someone remembering them. Both of these spirits had a big part in the original series.

This series follows Opal. She’s a human mage who is working as a cleaner. In the DFZ, people who abandoned their homes or don’t pay their rent, their locations are auctioned off. Cleaners purchase these locations and will clean them up for the next tennent. They get to keep and/or sell anything they find in the locations.

Opal is on a big deadline. She owes a very powerful person $10k in just a few days. She is desperate and to buy and get a location cleaned ASAP. She stumbles upon something she wasn’t expecting and even stumbles on to a dead body, which also means she has to wait to see if there are any next of kin. If someone is found, then they get the stuff. She will get her money back, but that will be weeks away.

Opal has an AI that is in her goggles or even her phone that she uses for looking up stuff all the time. The AI is very personable and is Opal’s best friend. Sybil, the AI, is great comic relief in this series. She’s quick the smart ass and is also good and trying to keep Opal from doing anything too crazy.

She also ends up with a partner on this cleaning job from another cleaner, Nikola Kos. He knows that she’s on to something, but not what. He saves her when someone tries to kill her, which is how he knows she’s found something, even if she doesn’t know it. I really liked Nikola and really want to know more about him.

This was a nice spinoff series. It isn’t as good as Heartstrikers, but still a nice series. I will be interested in the next book for sure.

Narration
I think this is my first time listening to Emily Woo Zeller. She did a great job with the narration of this story. I loved all the voices that she chose for each character, especially Sybil the AI. She does a wonderful job with male and female voices. I would love to listen to her narrate more of this series and other books.

**I'd like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 4 March, 2019: Finished reading
  • 4 March, 2019: Reviewed